2016-02-09 ‘I was a musician who never would have thought that one day photography would completely take over.’

Those who are creative in one field often have the ability to neatly side step into another and be equally adept, and so it proved with Lars van de Goor, who started out as a musician and has now become an accomplished landscape photographer.

“I first started taking an interest in photography in 2007. It started out as a hobby and I was completely self-taught. At the time I was living near Amsterdam and I would go out on my bicycle to explore my local area looking for pictures.

Near my house there was a long tree-lined canal, and I began to look for some interesting compositions along its banks. People appeared to like the theme, because when I posted my results online I received some good responses. That encouraged me and I started to become more involved.

“Having no formal training was good in a way because I didn’t feel limited by any rules, but on the other hand teaching yourself something is a real trial-and-error process. Over time I came away with many over and under-composed and blurry images, and I started to teach myself postproduction skills to try to rescue some of them. Of course there is always a limit!”

The perseverance paid off, however, and by 2010 Lars felt confident enough to enter one of his shots in the Landscape/Nature section of the Hasselblad Masters competition and was placed in the top ten. This time around he’s gone one better and has won the category, with a sublimely beautiful shot that he took in the Speulder Forest, one of the oldest and most beautiful parts of the Netherlands.

“I took it towards the end of autumn,” he says. “Beech trees sometimes hold their leaves for a long time, even until new ones start to grow. I was charmed by the contrast of the branches and the leaves against the misty background.”

Hugely excited by his award, Lars, who is now living with his wife and her son in Lochem Gelderland, one of the most photogenic regions of the Netherlands, can’t wait to start working with a Hasselblad. “I was a musician who never would have thought that one day photography would completely take over,” he says. “I’ve enjoyed working with the DSLRs that I’ve used to date, and they’ve been very well suited to my needs. However, I believe that when I start using my new Hasselblad my photography will move on to another level, and it will be as if I can actually smell and touch the surroundings.”

The ten winners will be tasked to create a new and unique set of images, using a Hasselblad Medium Format camera, embracing the theme ‘Inspire’ (coinciding with Hasselblad’s 75th anniversary) for the latest edition of the Hasselblad Masters Book. The Winners will receive their trophy and their own Hasselblad camera to keep at a special photokina 2016 ceremony in Cologne this September.

Our World

Our World

Create to Inspire

Since the beginning Hasselblad cameras were born from a love for photography and the desire of a man to give photographers the technical excellence needed to realise their creative vision. That man was Victor Hasselblad.

For seventy five years now, Hasselblad has been devoted to a very simple task: to produce the finest camera equipment known to man. And for over seventy years, we have succeeded in doing just that. In making the tools that will enable us to live up to the Hasselblad brand proposition, “Create To Inspire”.